


Time for Walls to Come Down

by Wizardess Heart Side B (AmaranthPrincess21)



Category: Shall We Date?: Wizardess Heart+
Genre: Corpses, F/M, Flashbacks, Hometown Secrets, Serial Killers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-22
Updated: 2020-01-22
Packaged: 2021-02-26 08:36:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,779
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22359427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AmaranthPrincess21/pseuds/Wizardess%20Heart%20Side%20B
Summary: After the death of my neighbor, Joel and I return to Reitz to take care of his house and renovate it to put it back on the market. But the job won't be easy, and old memories and secret resurface as we explore the house.(Trust No One, Side B)
Relationships: Joel Crawford/Reader





	1. Chapter 1

Every so often, the Amadori flew into Gedonelune and messed up the weather system. Mom said they used to try and keep the bird out, but after years and years of failing, they gave up. The bird must have been close, because it was raining so hard that June and I had to stay inside and play. We stood at the foot of the stairs, lanterns in hand, staring down to the pitch black that was the basement of my house.

"Are you sure you wanna go down there?" June asked. I puffed up my chest and nodded.

"Yeah! I'm not scared at all!" I boasted. June looked like she didn't believe me, but just stared down the staircase.

"Okay then. You can hold my hand if you want," she said. I didn't hesitate to grab her hand and we slowly made our way down to the basement. Each wooden stair creaked underneath our feet as we walked deeper into the darkness. I tried my best not to tremble too much. The last thing I needed was June to call me a scaredy cat, or something. We reached the bottom level and June reached on her tiptoes to flip the light switch. Suddenly, the basement was filled with light. The space was kinda of barren. There were some tools, some old furniture, a laundry machine, just small things that were stored away neatly. And once the light was on, the space wasn't as creepy as it used to be.

"I think we should set up the fort near a corner. That way, it'll be easier to hang blankets," June said, going to the far corner of the room. I followed after her.

"Sounds good! And we can use this couch as support!" I pointed out. We put our lanterns down and after a few trips to the top floor, we had all our blankets and pillows ready. June grabbed a hammer and nails from a toolbox.

“June, what are you doing?” I demanded.

“I'm gonna put some nails in so we can hang our blankets easier,” she said.

“You can't do that! My parents will be mad!” I protested, but she shook her head.

“They won't even notice, I promise. It'll be fine. Don't worry.” Before I could take the hammer and nails from her, she started to drive a nail into the wooden wall. One strike, two strike, and then on the third, missed and hit the wall, making a hole in it. My stomach immediately dropped to the ground and panic flooded into me.

"Oh no!" I cried. June pulled the hammer out and even more of the wall came out. The hole was the size of my hand.

"Quick, go get the glue from the toolbox!" I ran over and grabbed it. June had the pieces of wall in her hand, but she wasn't trying to piece things together. Instead, she was staring at the wall.

"June? What's wrong?" I asked. June ignored me and reached her hand into the hole. "Wait, don't do that! You don't know what's in there!" I protested. When she pulled her hand out, there was a fistful of long brown hair.

"What the heck?" she mused.

"Why is there hair?" I asked. She tried pulling it out, but it wouldn't budge. We could only get a bit out.

"Maybe when they were building the house, one of the builders got her hair stuck in a nail?" June suggested.

"Or maybe it's from the neighbor. Our basements are right next to each other. Maybe it's their wig." We paused, and realizing this could be someone's property, we freaked out even more, hastily shoving the hair back into the wall and doing a messy patch job. But for as long as I lived there, my parents never said a thing and June and I never revealed what we found that day. Looking back on it, I wish we had gotten caught or had said something.


	2. Chapter 2

Coming home to Reitz with Joel was always an interesting experience. We kept the secret of him being June, so he had to be careful not to let it slip he really knew everyone. But this time, it was a sad event that brought us back to my hometown: my next-door neighbor had died and since his wife had left him several years ago, Joel and I volunteered to take get the place ready.

"You two really are too kind," one of the ladies at the funeral told us.

"He was our neighbor. It was the least I could do," I told her. She sighed and looked down at the coffin, slowly being covered by dirt by a few men.

"It's such a shame his kids weren't here to do it for him," she commented.

"Are they busy, or something?" Joel asked.

"No, they had a bit of a falling out a few years ago. After their mother moved out, they got into some huge fight with him and severed ties. I don't know the whole story, but that's what he told me when it happened," she said.

"That's sad," I replied. In the back of my head, I wondered why they cut him out. The funeral slowly dwindled down and then we headed home. Joel immediately started taking off his formal clothes as soon as I had the door shut.

"I hate this suit," he sighed.

"Don't get too comfortable. We should probably head over to his house and just check the place out before working tomorrow," I said. Joel sighed, but nodded.

"All right. I guess we can do that." We changed into work clothes and headed over to his house. We had the keys, but even with that, it was hard to get it. Things were just scattered around and I could smell the faint stench of rotting food coming from the kitchen. Joel look flat-out angry and it only got worst as we walked through the entire house.

"This place is disgusting. No wonder his wife left him," he commented.

"Joel!"

"Oh, like you weren't thinking the same thing! Look at all this mess! This has to be a health hazard!" he fired back. The mess didn't go away in any of the rooms we went in. Every bedroom, every bathroom, every space was just filled with junk. We had to basically wade through it. I didn't even wanna see what was in the master bedroom, but life's not fair sometimes.

"We're burning everything in there," I told Joel as we left.

"Yeah. Yeah, I agree with that," he said. We made our way to the kitchen and we found the door to the basement. It was locked. We tried to unlock it, but the key wouldn't fit in it.

"Uh, do you know how to pick locks?" I asked. Joel stared at the knob intensely.

"No, but this looks pretty old. We'd probably have to replace it anyway. Let's go get a hammer and break it off." Carefully, we left the house and headed back over to ours. The tools were still in the basement, but this time, it wasn't as scary. I flipped the light switch on and the place looked non-threatening. I scoured the place for a hammer. Joel went to a corner, staring at the wall.

"Joel, what are you doing?"

"Do you remember when we put a hole in the wall?" he said, pointing to our shoddy patch job.

"How could I forget that. iI was worried about my parents finding out about it for months," I told him. He grimaced.

"Maybe we should finally fix this once we finish taking care of that man's house," he said.

"We probably should. We'll probably have to fix some walls, anyway. There's no way there's no water damage in that house."

"There's so much trash on the floor you can't even see the baseboards in there." Joel grabbed the hammer from me and without asking, smashed through the patched wall.

"Joel?!"

"We were going to have to break it back open anyway," he said. We looked at the hole and we couldn't see the brown hair we'd found in it. Instead, there was something pale-colored in there.

"What is that?" I asked, squinting. In the bad lighting, I couldn't tell what it was. I took the hammer from Joel and poked it. Whatever it was, it was hard. It fell in between the walls with a thud. I sighed and gave the hammer back to Joel. "Yeah, I don't know what that was. But I guess it wasn't a wig or something like we thought it was."

"I mean it could have been when we were kids, and that wig just got replaced with something else," Joel said as we walked back up the stairs. "I mean, you guys share that wall and his wife left, right? So it wouldn't still be there."

"But I mean... There was all that women's clothing in the master bedroom. Clearly a woman was still living there," I reasoned.

"Debatable. Some of those didn't look like the same size," Joel pointed out. "And even if a woman was still living there, it's not like his new girlfriend will keep something in the same place."

"That's true... I don't know, there's just something really weird about this, I admitted, crossing my arms in front of my chest. Joel sighed.

"Yeah. There's something weird going on with this dude. But let's just check out the basement, come back, and make a renovation plan," he said.

"That sounds like a plan." However, that's not how are day was going to go.


	3. Chapter 3

Now that we kinda of knew where to step, it was easier for us to make our way through the man's house. Physically, at least. It was still disgusting to see all the weird news clippings hanging on the walls talking about kidnappings and other true crime cases and all the trash on the ground. We got to the kitchen and Joel didn't waste any time taking the hammer to the door knob. It broke and Joel easily got the door opened. I couldn't see the bottom of the basement stairs and I felt like I was a child again, scared of the dark and what lurked in the basement. Joel glanced back at me and wordlessly offered his hand. I took it and we went down the stairs. There was yet another rotting stench that just got worse and worse as we headed down. I pulled my shirt collar up around my nose to try and filter out some of the smell, but it didn't help too much. Joel found the light switch and flipped it on.

The room was shockingly clean. It looked like it'd just been cleaned. Sure, there were some butchering knives out, but given how rural Reitz was, it wasn't uncommon for families to butcher their own meat. The knives looked unkempt, as if they were about to start rusting soon. There wasn't a whole lot of things down here. A bed, the butchering tools, a few more furniture pieces, firewood. Nothing too out of the ordinary.

"Oh, there's definitely water damage in the walls," Joel said, going over to the wall this neighbor and I shared. I looked over and the water stains were atrocious.

"Geez. Maybe we should just remove this entire wall," I mused.

"I think we're going to have to. Let's test this out," Joel took the hammer and bashed a hole into the wall. I was gonna tease him about liking that hammer too much, but the stench in the room got so bad I coughed instead. "I was worried about that..." Joel said between coughs.

"What is it?"

"I don't think it's water damage. There must be a rats nest in here, and they're all dead. The damage is probably from them decomposing. It happened to one of the houses my family and I lived in after we moved out of Reitz," he said. He looked defeated already. "I think we need to take care of this immediately so it doesn't get worse."

"Yeah..." I stood back and watched as Joel hit the wall again and again, the wall chipping away. Piece after piece fell to the ground. I couldn't quiet make out what was behind the wall; all I could tell that it was fairly big and they were starting to lean against the wall as they started shifting. As Joel was hammering away, the wall was so soft it was starting to bend and after a huge piece fell and dry support gone, part of the wall broke apart.

A figure tumbled out of the wall, followed by another, and another, and another. Corpse and corpse falling out of the broken walls, tumbling to the ground like a toy falling off of a bed. Joel scurried back to me, shaking and I could hear myself screaming. A few bones clattered to the ground and I didn't care if there were any more in the walls. There were already three dead bodies on the ground and it was far more than I could handle.

My memory's a blur. The next thing I distinctly remembered was talking to the town sheriff and waiting for Rex to exit the basement with his team and tell us anything he could. My throat was so sore as we told the story to the sheriff. I don't remember when I started crying. We just sat outside the house, waiting for this to all be over.

I heard footsteps behind me and saw Rex looking troubled as he walked out of the house. I would have gotten up to meet him halfway, but I didn't have the energy to get up. It worked out I guess, since he came to us and the sheriff. He whispered something I couldn't hear before sitting down next to me.

“How are you holding up?” he asked. I just shrugged. “Yeah... I hate to push, but can you tell me what happened again?”

“We were tasked with cleaning up the house after the owner died and we had to break into the basement to see what the situation was. There was some water damage on the walls, at least, we thought that's what it was, and an awful smell, so we decided just to go ahead and take that wall down. And then..." I looked off to the side. "The... bodies..."

"I see." Rex paused. "How well did you know your neighbor?"

"I thought I knew him all right. We weren't close or anything, but my family thought he was a decent guy," I said.

"My family thought the same," Joel spoke up. Rex pulled out a notebook and started taking notes.

"No one saw this coming. Even when we went into the house, we just figured it was a hoarding situation, or something," I told him. Rex frowned and continued taking notes.

“Do you know if he has any family?”

“He has a son and two daughters, but I don't know where they are right now.” I gave Rex their names and after a few more questions, we were let go. Joel and I trudged back into our house.

“I'm taking a bath. And burning these clothes,” Joel murmured as he made a beeline for the bathroom. I followed after him and slumped against the door as he got himself ready for his bath.

“Joel... Do you think... Do you think that hair we found when we were kids belonged to a body?” I asked. There were a few moments of silence.

“I guess it must have been.” I already knew it in my heart, but hearing Joel confirm it made my stomach sink.

“Do you think we could have saved lives if we had told my parents about the hole when we were little?”

“... Maybe. But then again, if we'd torn down that wall back then, he would've known and he could've had time to run,” Joel said. “And it's not like anyone thought he was capable of murder, anyway.”

“True, but...” I trailed off. I could hear the water pouring out of the faucet and I sat down, waiting for it to finish so I could keep talking to Joel. It's true I didn't spend a lot of time with that neighbor, but he watched us sometimes when we needed a babysitter. And it's just bizarre and unsettling to think someone you know has killed someone. Do we ever really know anyone else? It was already bad enough there was a murder investigation going on next door, but knowing you can't really trust people? It's not a wake-up call I wanted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is partially inspired by two things: 1) that scene from I think The Haunting in Connecticut with the corpses being stuffed into walls and 2) a murder one of my professors worked on when she was younger. Well, the house being filthy and disgusting was based on that case. The whole case would be too awful to base everything on it.


End file.
